The Friday Afternoon Challenge’s latest headbanger! Today: Art in the News!

[CTyankee]

Here are some recent appearances in the art world for you to identify!

...and, of course, cheating is a no no...

1.
[IMG][/IMG]

2.
[IMG][/IMG]

3.
[IMG][/IMG]

4.
[IMG][/IMG]

5.
[IMG][/IMG]

6.
[IMG][/IMG]

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Well, I have no idea as usual, but they are wonderful!

I look forward to seeing what they are.

[CTyankee]

2. Yep, some fun stuff here. The news out of art world is always wild and wacky.

that's why it is so much fun to research!

[mcranor]

3. #3 = Inflatable Stonehenge

Can't remember where I read about it......

[CTyankee]

4. name, place?

[pinboy3niner]

11. In Hong Kong, by Jeremy Deller, to promote a new museum

Once mcranor named it, it was an easy search.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2314154/Are-worlds-weirdest-bouncy-castles-Inflatable-sculptures-Stonehenge-pair-legs-pile-poo-Hong-Kong.html

[CTyankee]

13. Yep it is the opening of Art Basel Hong Kong.

Interesting that Hong KOng has had to step up to the rest of the art world...and they did!

[pinboy3niner]

5. #5: Pinturicchio - The Resurrection

Long Hidden, Vatican Painting Linked To Native Americans
by Sylvia Poggioli
May 05, 2013 5:25 AM

For close to 400 years, the painting was closed off to the world. For the past 124 years, millions of visitors walked by without noticing an intriguing scene covered with centuries of grime.

Only now, the Vatican says a detail in a newly cleaned 15th century fresco shows what may be one of the first European depictions of Native Americans.

The fresco, The Resurrection, was painted by the Renaissance master Pinturicchio in 1494 — just two years after Christopher Columbus first set foot in what came to be called the New World.

Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums, told the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano that after the soot and grime were removed, in the background, just above the open coffin from where Christ has risen, "we see nude men, decorated with feathered headdresses who appear to be dancing." One of them seems to sport a Mohican cut.

...


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/05/180860991/long-hidden-vatican-painting-linked-to-native-americans

[CTyankee]

6. don't you love it?

did you know this already or did you research it? I had seen it but not til I decided to do this challenge did I actually research it further...interesting, isn't it?

[pinboy3niner]

7. I'd seen the original story when it ran and made a note of it...

...thinking that it was likely to pop up in one of your Challenges. An art detective plans ahead!

[CTyankee]

8. Oh, you ARE a devil...or a genius...

[Kingofalldems]

9. #2 looks like John Paul II

[CTyankee]

10. Aahh...a few centuries off there...

[pinboy3niner]

12. #2: Celestine V, 13th-Century Pope

Celestine V, 13th-Century Pope, Examined; Skeleton Rules Out Murder By Head Trauma (PHOTOS)

The Huffington Post | By Meredith Bennett-Smith
Posted: 05/10/2013 5:34 pm EDT | Updated: 05/11/2013 8:11 am EDT


Pope Celestine V was an elderly, possibly frail man. After living as a self-flagellating hermit in Italy, he served as pontiff for only five months before resigning at the end of the 13th century. Since his death, the so-called "Hermit Pope" has been the subject of much speculation and intrigue, with legend holding that the he was murdered by his successor, Boniface VIII.

During examinations of Celestine's remains, a small, mysterious hole found on his skull led some to believe he died from trauma to the head. But a recent examination of the pope's skeleton suggests this murder theory might be false. Instead, Celestine may have died slowly from natural causes as he languished in Boniface's castle prison, where he was locked away soon after his resignation prompted fears that two popes could cause a schism in the Church.

Canonized by the Vatican in 1313, Celestine V was also one of the few popes to resign. Before he left his position, Celestine formally legalized the resignation with a document that helped serve as "legal bedrock" for Pope Benedict XVI's stepping down earlier this year, Celestine scholar George Ferzoco told NPR.

Dr. Luca Ventura, a surgical and anatomic pathologist at the San Salvatore Hospital in L'Aquila who performed the latest examination on the pope's skeletal remains, said he has followed the Celestine case for decades. In fact, medieval murder mysteries kind of run in the Ventura family.

...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/celestine-v-pope-skeleton-murdered_n_3253999.html

[CTyankee]

16. I knew once anyone googled pope+silver mask that it would pop right up but

it was just a creepy enough story not to resist it!

But what interesting and complicated ramifications! I love the history of this guy and also the medical stuff involved...the art of the silver mask ain't nothin' either!

[blogslut]

14. Is that death mask/face cover thing made from mother-of-pearl?

What is that material?

[CTyankee]

18. It was actually fashioned from silver by a local artist in Italy!

It replaced a truly repulsive looking wax mask that was somehow melted during the earthquake a few years back in L'Aquila. This is an improvement (if you aren't pretty repulsed by dead bodies being "renovated" centuries later...ugh).

[blogslut]

21. Ahhh, silver. Now, I see it.

From the photo, the mask thing looked like it had an opalescent patina but that's prolly just my old eyes playing tricks. Thanks for the info!

[CTyankee]

24. It DOES look opalescent! When I first saw it I was a bit bemused...my eyes are old, too!

[pinboy3niner]

15. #1: Giovanni Boldini - Portrait de Marthe de Florian

I didn't know the work, but I searched on Boldini because it reminded me of another work of his:

Portrait of Mrs. Howard Johnston (1906) by Giovanni Boldini

[CTyankee]

17. What is the story?

[pinboy3niner]

19. Found in a Paris apartment untouched for 70 years:

Inside the Paris apartment untouched for 70 years: Treasure trove finally revealed after owner locked up and fled at outbreak of WWII

By Leon Watson
PUBLISHED: 04:39 EST, 12 May 2013 | UPDATED: 01:57 EST, 13 May 2013

Caked in dust and full of turn-of-the century treasures, this Paris apartment is like going back in time.

Having lain untouched for seven decades the abandoned home was discovered three years ago after its owner died aged 91.
The woman who owned the flat, a Mrs De Florian, had fled for the south of France before the outbreak of the Second World War.
She never returned and in the 70 years since, it looks like no-one had set foot inside.

...


But he said his heart missed a beat when he caught sight of a stunning tableau of a woman in a pink muslin evening dress.

The painting was by Boldini and the subject a beautiful Frenchwoman who turned out to be the artist's former muse and Mrs de Florian’s grandmother, Marthe de Florian, a beautiful French actress and socialite of the Belle Époque.


Under a thick layer of dusk lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects including a painting by the 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323297/Inside-Paris-apartment-untouched-70-years-Treasure-trove-finally-revealed-owner-locked-fled-outbreak-WWII.html

[CTyankee]

25. Marthe sounds like a helluva woman! I just love stories like this!

I hope somebody makes a movie about this...why the granddaughter left, what her life was about, flashback to her grandmother's glamorous life...a perfect idea for a movie!

[gateley]

20. Boy -- you ARE an Art Detective! You're running the board!

[pinboy3niner]

22. On #6, I take it the crew of 4 was reduced to 3...

...after the guy in the red shirt came to an unfortunate end?

[countryjake]

42. Bwahahahaha! Pinboy, I bow to your amazing art-detective abilities...

but sometimes you can be a real wiseacre, too!

"I do not respond to hunches. No transporter malfunction was responsible for the disappearance."

Great job working on this week's challenge!

[rusty fender]

23. #6 is Gerhard Richter's Domplatz, Mailand

Sold for $37 million recently

[CTyankee]

26. wow, you are GOOD, rusty! It was distingushed as being the highest selling auction item

at Sotheby's of a work by a living artist.

The painting is a photo-realism work, it represents the cathedral plaza in Milan, Italy.

I absolutely loved that plaza when I visited Milan. It is quite impressive and the cathedral is beautiful...

[Warpy]

27. #1 is a portrait by Boldini

found in a Paris flat that had been shut up and abandoned by the family for some 70 years, simply left behind when they fled the Germans to the south of France.

[CTyankee]

28. Isn't it great? And it is of a woman who was Boldini's lover...I'd love to know the backstory

on her and on the granddaughter who just walked away from the apartment and never came back. That is so strange...

[Warpy]

29. I know. Either she was so massively rich she could afford to forget

about it or her childhood had been so massively miserable she chose to forget about it or she simply assumed the Nazis had trashed it and there was nothing left.

Whatever the reason, it's a perfect diorama of the stuff I grew up with, that heavy, ornate Victorian furniture that was all so dreadfully uncomfortable to sit on.

[CTyankee]

31. I have to wonder if she was Jewish and simply had to just get out of Paris.

I can't understand it otherwise. What a mystery!

[Warpy]

32. Anyone who had the means to leave, left.

If they had a villa in the south of France beyond Vichy's reach, so much the better.

Remember, they still had excellent memories of the Germans from WWI, just 22 years before. I doubt any of them wanted anything to do with a German occupation.

[CTyankee]

34. I wonder. Picasso stayed. Of course, we don't know what accommodations he made to the

Germans but there is the story of the german soldiers harassing him in his studio and their commander asking Picasso if a postcard rendering of his "Guernica" was "done by him" and he answered, "no, it was done by you."

[CTyankee]

30. We have only #4 to identify. I'll leave it open til tomorrow. But I am leaving for London

for an 8 day trip tomorrow at 1:30 so I'll post it earlier. Hope somebody gets it...it is an important story about the artistic patrimony of a country and we should all be outraged...but thank god it is being redressed...

Love and kisses to you all who visit this thread every week! I'll be thinking about you as i walk around the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square...and lots more...

[pinboy3niner]

33. Have a great trip, CTyankee!

I wonder where, oh where will the inspiration for the next Challenge come from?

[CTyankee]

35. Oh, it's weird. I've already done a London challenge so what else...who knows...I have two

more already planned but I let sheer imagination take me away...so we'll see...

[pinboy3niner]

36. The one burning question that remains...

Will you be able to get Morning Joe in London?

[CTyankee]

38. I'm talking a needed break from MJ and the restof the U.S. media!

I've just about had it with our crazy media. Travel abroad will make me sane again...

[pinboy3niner]

37. #4: Antiquities smuggled from Syria to Lebanon (2 arrested)

It took a lot of searching, but it finally turned up (after dropping 'Buddha' from search terms and instead looking for 'stolen relics').

Two Held in Lebanon for Smuggling Relics from Syria Cemeteries, Churches

Fri, 2013-05-17

The General Directorate of General Security on Thursday announced that it has busted a network that has been smuggling antiquities from Syria into Lebanon.

“After the GDGS received a tip-off and after reporting to the Public Prosecution, a unit from the directorate's information affairs bureau raided a hideout containing a quantity of stolen relics,” it said in a statement.

“After assigning an expert from the Ministry of Culture, at the state prosecutor's request, it turned out that these relics date to the Byzantine, Roman and Aramaic eras,” the statement added.

During the raid, General Security agents managed to arrest two members of the smuggling network, “who confessed that the antiquities were stolen from cemeteries in Palmyra and churches in Homs.”

The General Security is pursuing the rest of the network's members in order to arrest them and refer them to the relevant judicial authorities, the statement added.

http://www.lebanonews.net/content/two-held-lebanon-smuggling-relics-syria-cemeteries-churches

[CTyankee]

39. That's odd. The big story on "Kneeling Attendant" in the New York Times said it was from

Cambodia. Several of these sculptures went missing from an ancient temple there during the reign of Pol Pot and the civil war, stolen by bandits and winding up in places like Paris.

This one is being returned by the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. Evidently, they fetched a tidy sum of money from art dealers in Paris and got here after collectors here bought them.

The Met should have known better. What a shameful thing to do, without checking its provenance!

[pinboy3niner]

40. I'll trust your source before mine :)

It looks like the Lebanese source grabbed the wrong photo (ar any antiquities photo) to illustrate its report.

The NYT's excellent report is backed up by the documentation at The Met's website.

The NYT story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/arts/design/cambodia-to-ask-met-to-return-10th-century-statues.html?pagewanted=all

The Met page on this piece: http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/60053312?rpp=20&pg=1&ft=Kneeling+Attendants&pos=6

What's really mind-blowing is that the statue and its companion may have stood in a Cambodian temple for 1,000 years before being looted!

[CTyankee]

41. wasn't that a great story in the NYT? You would think the Met would have enough money to have

staff who check this stuff out pretty thoroughly before going ahead with the acquisition. I get it that maybe the Denver museum didn't have the staffing, but I don't give a pass to the Met.

I think that the reason that there is an awful lot of looting now is the stupendous amount of money that the very rich have to spend on art and antiquities. Then they can give them away if it gives them their jollies and "buys" them maybe a named wing in the museum (and hence immortality, since this is the only way to achieve it!). I used to raise money from very wealthy people in Greenwich, CT and I can tell you that "naming opportunities" are a big thing in major donor fundraising. The most prestigious schools do this all the time. After rich people have acquired all the toys they want, they realize they aren't going to live forever, but that named new wing or building or foundation they hope WILL.

Along with this immense wealth concentrated in fewer hands is a vastly improved communication technology. Stories like the big one in the NYT can be amassed using the Internet. Very quick and containing huge amounts of information.

I am a huge despiser of the robbing of countries' patrimony. If you've ever read about the Germans in Florence in WW2, you become absolutely appalled that when the Germans retreated in the face of the approaching Allied forces, they blew up every old bridge except the Ponte Vecchio! Hitler himself spared that bridge, thinking it was the real prize, when actually it was the Santa Trinita (designed by Michelangelo) but Hitler was showing his wretched ignorance. I nearly cried when I read that a few years ago. If you ever get a chance, read the account of what happened to the art there both during the war and also during the great flood of 1966. It is a fascinating study. I highly recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Water-Disaster-Redemption-Florence/dp/0767926498

See ya after I return on June 2!